Help:Category and infobox policy
To avoid situations where pages about characters have very little information on them because all of the details are being stuffed into categories and infoboxes, the following policy will be in effect as of April 2019. Categories Many times, people will add categories because they are familiar with the character and story. In other cases, categories have been used as an excuse not to write anything about the character. It's easier to slap a "Hysterical" category on a page than to show how they get hysterical. So that other people can see how a category fits, before the category can be added, proof must be given in the form of sentences on the page to support it. Examples: * Before an "Arrogant" category is added, there must be enough of a description to show how they are arrogant. * Before a "Sadist" category is added, there must be enough information written to show how the character is a sadist. Any categories that are not supported by information on the page are subject to being deleted. Straightforward categories Other wikis tend to follow the TV Tropes model of assigning categories, leading to categories like "faux affably evil" or "complete monster". Many of these are subjective and have often led to edit wars as people debate and argue about whether the category fits. Others have been misused, such as saying that an antagonist temporarily helping the hero means the antagonist reformed or was redeemed when it may actually have been a coincidence. Categories should be kept simple, straightforward and objective as much as possible. Examples of such categories would include their species, gender, occupation, etc. Trivial categories Before a category is added, users should ask themselves if the category is really needed. For example, "Villains with green eyes". A good way to make the determination as to whether the category is needed is to flip it around and ask, "Are people interested to know which villains have green eyes?" or say, "When I go to a wiki, I specifically want to know which villains have green eyes." If you cannot say that people really would be interested in knowing that sort of thing and would specifically seek out the information in that category, then it is a trivial category and should not be added. Infoboxes Like categories, infoboxes are often used as an excuse not to write anything about the character. More and more factoids are stuffed into the infobox until it's over a foot tall. Meanwhile, the main part of the page is neglected and may only contain one or two sentences. This would be the same as a book where all of the information is put into the Table of Contents and the Index/Appendix, but the rest of the pages are almost completely blank. Infoboxes need to be used to present a short summary of the character. Sections that can become lengthy need to be kept short and a "for more information"-type link added. For example, a character with a large number of relatives can easily occupy a large area of the infobox. The list of relatives should be kept short and a link added to a "Relationships" section used instead. "Missing" information Steps should be taken to avoid trying to invent information that appears to be missing. Examples include ages, middle names, birth dates, death dates and relatives. The reasoning usually goes like this: "The character is alive. That means they were born. I don't see a birthdate, so I'll put one in. They will also die at some point in the future, so I'll put in when they will die. And because they were born, they have to have a mother and a father, so I'll invent parents for them." Though reasonable, inventing information like this is a form of fan fiction and is also attempting to do the job for the writers. If something appears to be missing, the reality may be that it just wasn't important enough for telling the story to come up with that detail. Ages, birth dates and death dates need to be sourced if they are included. Many stories do not specify times like that. Besides not being necessary to tell the story, by avoiding these, the story can remain "timeless" and relevant to audiences in the future. Information that cannot be verified may be deleted without warning. The source can be put in the Edit Summary box, or better yet, described in the main part of the page itself. Category:Policies